Global warming is demonstrably occurring—that is fact, not hypothesis; the scientific consensus is clear and unambiguous, not, as some political and fossil fuel corporate contrarions continue to insist, unlikely, false or merely predictive.
Yet it is striking—perilous for the earth and generations of diverse species including our own—that climate change, its demonstrability and the severity of its impact, is thought by many hard to grasp, impossible to change, looming, inevitable end-of-times catastrophe, without tangible personal consequence for our own lives. We avert our eyes. The learning curve seems too steep, the tangle of evidence daunting. We are like live lobsters in a slowly heating pot of water.
If we are not to abandon the issue to our children and our children's children, we must find a way to learn and to act, so that support for a host of necessary policies to reduce global warming, like the elimination of further coal-fired power plants, becomes truly compelling.
Here is a brief primer.
Michael Klare summarizes in TomDispatch:
"Essentially, climate change will wreak its havoc on us by constraining our access to the basics of life: vital resources that include food, water, land, and energy. This will be devastating to human life, even as it significantly increases the danger of resource conflicts of all sorts erupting.
"We already know enough about the future effects of climate change to predict the following with reasonable confidence:
* Rising sea levels will in the next half-century erase many coastal areas, destroying large cities, critical infrastructure (including roads, railroads, ports, airports, pipelines, refineries, and power plants), and prime agricultural land.
* Diminished rainfall and prolonged droughts will turn once-verdant croplands into dust bowls, reducing food output and turning millions into “climate refugees.”
* More severe storms and intense heat waves will kill crops, trigger forest fires, cause floods, and destroy critical infrastructure."
James Hanson of NASA pioneered the path to understanding. I attach below reference to Hanson's still relevant 2008 interview, and a couple of important more recent articles on the subject.
Where Is Everybody? Why It’s So Tough to Get Your Head Around Climate Change, by Tom Engelhardt
Andrew Revkin and Bill McKibben